PHP and Cygwin

I’ve been having some problems with PHP and Apache 2 on windows recently. I would be doing some development work and refreshing the page to test progress and after some short time Apache would stall and require a restart. I tracked the problem down to using the binary module that comes with PHP. If that module was removed from the Apache configuration, the webserver would be just fine – but without PHP running.

Installing packages from Cygwin Ports was as easy as adding the URLftp://sourceware.org/pub/cygwinports to the cygwin server list. So, I followed the instructions for including their package, installed PHP and wrote a quick test script using only phpinfo():

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

I typed http://localhost/index.php and Success!

The next step was to get something more complex working, specifically CMS Made Simple. But I’ll leave that for next time.

What do they mean here http://sourceware.org/cygwinports/ when they say that every time we update our installation we must visit our preferred Cygwin mirror and then the Cygport repository? If I don’t need anything from the Cygport repository, what do I do when I am there? If I just need something from the Cygport repository, what do I do when I visit my preferred Cygwing mirror and I have nothing that I want to download from there?

The previous post was one point only, perhaps a small point. In general, what is missing is a good documentation for the installation of the CygwinPort PHP package. Here are the items I expect in this documentation:
1- On which versions of Windows the package has been tested.
2- The exact description of the packages to extract from Cygwinports: the name of each package that we need to check (i.e., have a cross in the corresponding box) and whether we want the source or the binary.
3- What actions must be done with these packages. This includes the 5 steps here http://sourceware.org/cygwinports/ (which should be clarified as pointed out in the previous post). It should also include the answer provided to Min by Gareth.

I went through the installation the best I can on Windows Vista and I cannot manage to have Apache recognize my php file as a script. Also, when I call php.exe from a cygwin shell or from a command prompt, I got a long list of warnings that dll’sare missing.